Читать книгу Souls of My Young Sisters: - Dawn Marie Daniels - Страница 14

By Floree Williams

While recovering alcoholics fight an internal battle to put down the bottle, I fight with the Debbie Downer in me. We constantly wrestle as I try to uplift myself and justify why something I do or the way I look just isn’t right. As I type this, I wrestle with the thought of whether or not this piece will actually be chosen, whether it’s good enough.

When most people hear about a girl with self-esteem problems, they probably think, “Poor girl, she’s a victim of the media’s portrayal of the perfect woman.” On the contrary, I kind of always knew that the women on TV and in magazines were not as they appeared. My problems stemmed from real people, the people that I interacted with every day. I can’t pinpoint the exact age where it all started, perhaps sometime after I had begun to learn reason and logic but before I could figure out who I was. One day you go from thinking, “Hey, I am me and I am the best”—Sesame Street does that for you—to “Why is everything about me so flawed?” Slowly I went from the little engine that could to the little engine that is just going to pull back into the station and wait for the world to go away.

Sadly, it started at home, with family. It started with the comparisons. Being compared to others at a young age is not for the weak-minded child. If I came home with something less than an A+, I was reminded that at my age an older sibling brought home nothing less. This may seem like a small, silly reason to have low self-esteem, but when you honestly do try your hardest and your best isn’t good enough, well, you start thinking, “Maybe I am not smart.”

As an adolescent, my soft voice and standoffish personality never allowed me to be that bubbly, delightful child who lit up a room and held conversations with adults. Let’s just say that I was no Shirley Temple. In fact, I’m sure some people wondered whether I was mute. I vaguely remember a specific incident that knocked yet another peg out of my self-esteem totem pole. Somewhere in my tween years, my parents had dragged me to some sort of social gathering held by their friends. I walked around with them and said my usual inaudible salutations and then retreated to a convenient seat next to the snack table where I could have my fill of cheese curls. Then a family friend who owned one of these “Shirley Temple” children walked in, and for most of the night I watched—between sips of soda—as she worked the room with personality, charm, and intelligence. I really could not have cared less, to tell the truth. I had nothing to say to these people. But as soon as we left and the car door closed, the comparisons started. By the time we arrived home, I was made to understand that being a “Shirley Temple” was the correct way to be. It’s kind of hard to be told that you don’t have the right type of personality.

Then came the high school years, God bless them, the ground zero of my mental destruction. By then the Puberty Fairy had waved her wand and given curvaceous blessings to most girls. She skipped over me. She forgot to give me another two cup sizes, some childbearing hips, and some “junk in the trunk.” For goodness sakes, everyone had that one thing on their bodies that they absolutely loved. But to give me zero out of three was a pretty damaging move by that neglectful Puberty Fairy.

Appearance was one thing I never noticed or suffered a comparison from, so in a sense I never noticed my body. That is, until it was pointed out to me, jeered at, mocked, and trivialized in my teenage years. I will never forget overhearing a family friend make the comment: “She’s never been Miss Body Beautiful.” One can only assume that if you weren’t Miss Body Beautiful, you must have been Miss Body Ugly. I could only build a thick enough skin to last me until the end of the day or until I got to the bathroom, where I could cry. Another comment I shall never forget came from a classmate who advised me to not go into sports because me in tights would only cause laughter. She didn’t have to worry about that. I stayed far from sports after constantly being picked last to be on a team because I always contributed to losing points due to clumsiness and bad hand-eye coordination. I had already suffered enough embarrassment to last forever. Let’s just say I still find excuses not to participate in friendly physical activity.

My lowest point came at around fifteen. I can clearly remember seeing my reflection in a tinted car window and absolutely hating, loathing, despising who I saw. So I went on a weight-gaining spree. I decided to gain weight until it went into the right places. Of course I was able to gain cushioning in some key areas and in other not-so-flattering ones. I can’t say that this really solved my problems. I did feel less self-conscious until I gained too much and then became concerned about weight loss.

How far have I come since then? I won’t lie and say that I am absolutely infatuated with myself. I have my on and off days. The older I get, the more on days I have. I have learned with maturity that there is nothing wrong with my personality. As for my body, well, does that feeling of inadequacy ever go away?

One day I hope to be blessed with a daughter, and I hope that the one thing I can pass on to her is to accept herself for who she is, and that as long as she tries her hardest, then her best is good enough.

As for me, I get by one day at a time, learning to love more of me slowly, but surely.

Floree Williams is a native of the small Caribbean island of Antigua. Floree has a published book of childhood short stories called Pink Teacups and Blue Dresses, which is available online. She has a novel on the way. She is a fairly recent graduate of the University of Toronto, where she majored in communications and professional writing.